Memory and Implicit Cognition
One of the center's two major studies will assess the effects of a nationally recognized drug-abuse prevention program-Project Towards No Drug Abuse-on memory associations and unconscious thought processes in high-risk teens.
This approach assumes that behavior, including drug use, is not just governed by rational decisions but also is influenced by triggers that activate certain links in an individual's unconscious or conscious memory. A drug user, for example, might suddenly develop a strong craving when he encounters someone with whom he used to get high. Such cravings, spontaneously evoked by memory triggers, may displace or compete with new conscious efforts to stay away from drugs.
Drug-use prevention researchers have rarely addressed these underlying thought processes, although they are consistent with findings from basic research in neurobiology, memory and learning. Understanding how best to apply associative memory processes to prevention is one of the major goals of this project.
Steve Sussman, Ph.D., professor of preventive medicine, is principal investigator of this study, which will include about 1,400 students 16 to 18 years old in continuation high schools in the Los Angeles area. Students of both genders include Caucasian, Latino, African-American and Asian/Pacific Island youth. Sussman, assisted by Stacy and others, developed the successful drug abuse prevention program under study in this project.
Sussman is co-principal investigator and co-director of the new drug abuse prevention research center.
Power of Peer Influence
The second major study will use a tool called social network analysis theory to determine if harnessing the power of peer influence can make an already proven drug prevention program-again Project Towards No Drug Abuse-more effective. For example, will a 14-year-old boy be better able to reject drugs if h
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Contact: Jon Weiner
jonweine@usc.edu
323-442-2830
University of Southern California
5-Nov-2002